Orangeville hoops star loves game again through coaching girls team

Friday

Jan 31, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By Matt TrowbridgeRockford Register Star

ORANGEVILLE - Bradley was playing at DePaul. A crowd of Orangeville fans drove 115 miles to All-State Arena in Rosemont that winter day in 1994 to watch the biggest basketball recruit in the history of their small town play in the big time.

The problem was, he wasn't there.

"I was on a ride home with my father," said Brian Hildebrand, who told assistant coach Rob Judson he was leaving the day before. "I came home and got a job and went on from there. It was a hard decision to make. I figured at the time I would go back and play basketball again. That was my love.

"I loved the hell out of that game. And I still do."

Brian Hildebrand did not go back. He walked away from basketball. Completely away.

"When real life is hitting you in the face, you know you are not the All-American basketball star anymore," he said. "Basketball is gone. Now it's down to real life. From there on, I never touched another basketball until my daughter was in seventh grade."

Now, 20 years after leaving Bradley, the 6-foot-7 center who led Orangeville to its only state basketball appearance is coaching the girls basketball team at his old high school.

"It's very cool," Hildebrand said. "I am a lucky man for the way everything has happened.

"It's a second chance. Something that was messed up has turned to something that's good."

College choice

Marquette, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois and Evansville were among the schools that recruited Hildebrand, who twice led Orangeville to a school-record 25 wins and averaged 23 points and 14 rebounds as a senior. He wound up going to Highland to finish some credits he needed to be eligible. He scored a school-record 1,385 points in two years and was honorable mention All-American at Highland in 1993, the first in Cougars' history. He then chose Bradley after former NIU coach Jim Molinari took over the Braves.

"I followed him there mainly because of Rob Judson. He was a great guy. I was liking him more than the head coach.

"But when I showed up, it was a totally different story. You know how they promise you the world?

"It wasn't the world."

Hildebrand learned Division I college sports "is a different animal." He grew up playing every day with a once-in-a-lifetime group of Orangeville athletes (every member of the 1991 state-qualifying basketball team except Hildebrand was also on the Broncos' 1990 state football championship team).

But in college, it's not just practice. It's also work. Hard work.

"It's a job at that point, at least down there," Hildebrand said. "I didn't mind working out. I lifted weights. And we'd run every day until we puked.

"But it wasn't fun no more. He didn't make it fun. It was demanding, demanding, demanding."

And the games themselves were punishing. Hildebrand had bulked up from 200 pounds as a high school senior to 230 at Bradley. Standing 6-7, 230 is great for a player with small-forward skills - Orangeville won its first sectional title on an 18-foot fadeaway by Hildebrand with three seconds left against Annawan - but not a Division I center.

"He stuck me at center," Hildebrand said of Molinari. "One game against Wichita State, they had one guy 260 pounds and 6-10 and another guy 7-1 and 300 pounds. I was in the hole with them battling those guys. I'm just getting the crap beaten out of me.

"We had 7-1 and 7-2 guys on the bench too, but I beat them out in practice. I stuck in there as long as I could until I just couldn't take it anymore."

Muscle had never been Hildebrand's game.

"Brian was a rare breed. He could shoot the ball from any range, not just mid-range and inside," said former Orangeville coach Brian Benning. "His touch was amazing. He could really stretch out the defense."

Returning home

So Brian Hildebrand went home to Orangeville, population 779. The local boy who didn't make good.

Only he didn't see it that way.

"It had to be tough, because you are up on a little bit of a pedestal," said Benning, who would move on to coach Harlem football and Dakota basketball and golf. "The things he accomplished are such a big part of Orangeville history, but that doesn't matter much to Brian. Brian's just going to do what he thinks is the right thing to do. When he made the decision, he wasn't going to look back and second-guess himself."

"It never bothered him," said his wife, Deanna Hildebrand. "What it comes down to is he wouldn't want that lifestyle. Even if he made the NBA, he would rather stay home, raise kids and have a family in a small town and know his neighbors."

When Hildebrand returned home, he got a job working as an electrician for the city of Freeport's water and sewer commission. That's where he met Deanna. He also bought a farm where he grows 80 acres of corn and beans.

But he didn't touch a basketball. Not for more than 15 years.

"It was hard to watch him not do anything with basketball for how good he was," said Orangeville farmer Matt Hazzard, the point guard on that state qualifying team. "To have it be like it was, where he didn't enjoy it, was hard to watch."

Even his family didn't understand.

"How can you have such a passion for the sport and all of a sudden stop?" his wife would ask. "That was very confusing for me."

A hoops return

Sierra Hildebrand is the reason Brian returned to basketball. And Madalyn Hildebrand is the reason he hopes to stay for at least seven more years.

Brian returned to the game when his two daughters began to play. "I helped out, doing the father thing with them," he said.

When Sierra, now a freshman, needed a coach in seventh grade. Deanna talked Brian into taking the job. The next year, Brian coached the same team in eighth grade. He got to stay with the same group again this year when high school coach Fred Linker decided to retire, opening the varsity job for Hildebrand.

"How often does that happen in life?" he said. "I might have just had two years there and been done. I'm very fortunate. Everything lined up just right."

Everything but Sierra. His oldest daughter "went the band way" and chose music over basketball. "Isn't that something?" Hildebrand said.

But that didn't lessen Hildebrand's enthusiasm for coaching. He had grown to love working with the group of girls he had spent two years with and now wants to keep coaching until at least Madalyn, now in fifth grade, graduates.

"He calls me once in awhile," Hazzard said. "He's so excited about coaching now, he goes on and on, sometimes for an hour on the phone. It's fun to hear it in his voice."

It's fun for his players too.

"He'll make half-court shots, goof around and have fun with us," senior Crystal Rote said. "He's very passionate about basketball, but he wants us to have fun first. He says winning will come, but the most important thing is to have fun."

"People may pick winning over fun," Hildebrand explained, "but I believe you've got to have fun, then you win. I always had fun with Brian Benning, my coach, and my teammates. We always had smiles on our faces."

So do these Broncos, despite a modest record (4-15, 3-8 NUIC East). But the Broncos are young and athletic; several players were key members of Orangeville's freshman-laden softball team that took eventual state champion Milledgeville into extra innings in the sectional final.

"I think we're going to have a good deal going on," Hildebrand said.

It already is a good deal. Orangeville's greatest basketball player is back in the game. How could that not be good?

"Someone was wanting me to do this," Hildebrand said. "I have more of a drive now than when I left high school. I just love the atmosphere, the close games. 'It is go-time ladies, let's go!' That pumps me up. That still runs in my veins.